Healthy, well-thy and wise

The 9-week Healthy U Wellness Challenge kicks off today at the Academic and Student Recreation Center

The Academic and Student Recreation Center will host the Healthy U Wellness Challenge’s opening ceremony at 8 a.m. today on the second floor of the ASRC building. The event’s staff will provide detailed information and answer any questions participants may have.

The Healthy U Wellness Challenge is a nine-week competition open to Portland State students, faculty, staff, family and friends. Participants can compete individually or as a part of a team. Competitors log points online to win prizes and incentives.

Registration can be done at the member services counteron the second floor of the ASRC building. Individuals can register any time during the challenge. Teams must have four to 10 individuals. The deadline for forming a team is Jan. 23.

Points are earned by forming healthy habits like drinking six to eight cups of water every day, doing aerobic activity or strength training for 30 minutes a day and participating in events organized by the Healthy U Wellness Challenge staff.

“Our main objective of this program is to encourage people to begin living a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle,” intern Alex Grover said. “At the very least, we would like people to have those reminders of health, so they can even begin to think about their habits.”

The fee to participate for ASRC members is $10 and $20 for non-members. Non-members will also receive six passes to gain access to the Rec Center.

Participants are eligible to earn incentives when they reach the 150- and 300- point markers.

Other prizes will be raffled and given away throughout the challenge.

“We have grand prizes for first, second and third place individual participants and a grand prize for the winning team,” Grover said. “Come to our opening ceremony on Tuesday, Jan. 17 to hear what these awesome prizes will be.”

Over 200 people have already signed up, and the first 300 participants will receive a free organic cotton t-shirt. The event organizers are expecting to surpass this total.

“The response so far has been excellent,” Tracey Florence, another student intern, said. “This is the second year that Campus Rec has offered this event, and we’ve expanded it quite a bit from last year to include new healthy habits and a lot more events around campus. We have a lot of people who are really excited to get started.”

The various events organized for the challenge include fitness myths and injuries, team building, morning jogging, hula hooping and stress management.

“If I could add anything about the challenge, I would want people to know that Healthy U is a very under-utilized resource that is made available to the community at an insanely low cost,” Grover said. “Prizes and other free stuff aside, the amount of knowledge that participants will be walking away with greatly outweighs the initial cost of the program.”

For more information, visit www.wellness-challenge.pdx.edu or e-mail healthyu@pdx.edu.